The alternative Nobel Prize awards, the Ig Nobels, have been called for another year, with this particular winner making everyone laugh with an rc helicopter that collects whales' mucus and breath. A deserving winner, I think you might agree.

Dr Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse from the Zoological Society of London cleaned up in the engineering category for the helicopter, which has several petri dishes attached for collecting specimens. The other winners in the 21st Ig Nobel awards were equally strange, you'll be pleased to hear.

A Dutch man by the name of Simon Rietveld won the medicine category, for his research into the field of asthma—finding that asthma can be treated by riding on a rollercoaster. You can check out the full list of winners in the humorous science mag Annals of Improbable Research. [AIR via BBC]